Latest / The Jake Wimberly Podcast / Talladega President Brian Crichton joins the show 4-11-24
Transcript
- 0:00Got the Geico five hundred coming up a week from this weekend, and right
- 0:04now, Track president Brian Christian kind of enough to take some time with us
- 0:07as always to talk a little NASCAR talk to that event as well. Brian.
- 0:10Welcome in, sir. How you doing, Jake, I'm doing great.
- 0:13Thank you so much for having me on tonight. Hey, I appreciate
- 0:15you as always. All Right, So it's springtime, it's race season,
- 0:19which means Talladega Superspeedway, the Geico five hundred. A lot of people excited
- 0:24about it. We've been running promos, gonna be doing giveaways here, getting
- 0:27people ready to go. Big, big weekend coming up with you guys.
- 0:30It is Yeah, it's right around the corner. Next weekend, the April
- 0:33nineteenth, twentieth and twenty first, NASCAR invades Talladega super Speedway again and the
- 0:38fans are already lining up here. We've got our outside campgrounds open up on
- 0:43Monday, and we actually have RV's that are already staged on Speedway Boulevard looking
- 0:47to get into our campgrounds. Talk a little bit, and we've talked about
- 0:50this with you before, as you got about nine days if you go to
- 0:53the website Taladego Superspeedway dot Com. The countdown clock there. But how I
- 0:57mean this has always been a big event. But I mean you talk about
- 0:59people coming on Monday, I mean it is a week long, I mean
- 1:03event, fun event, not just for adults, for kids only, so
- 1:07much to do and talk to us a little bit about what people can do
- 1:10when they come over there. Yeah, you're exactly right. We actually welcome
- 1:12the world to Talladega, Alabama next weekend. So we'll have all fifty states
- 1:18we'll be represented here and twenty five to twenty different countries will purchase tickets and
- 1:23come out here to Talladega Superspeedway. So it's a massive event. It's twice
- 1:26a year. We've become the fifth largest city inside the state of Alabama,
- 1:30and our little Talladega Municipal Airport begin ends up being the busiest airport in the
- 1:37state of Alabama as well. We got activities that are going all weekend long.
- 1:42Of course, the track activity starts on Friday. We've got a doubleheader
- 1:45race on Saturday. Cup cars also qualify on Saturday, and then the Big
- 1:49Geico five hundred on Sunday. We also have a Saturday Night inside infield concert
- 1:55featuring Walker Hayes. It's going to be a great performance from Walker. And
- 2:00then after that you walk up and down the boulevard. It's a cool place
- 2:04to be. We got a big concert also on Saturday or Friday night,
- 2:07excuse me as well. Lots of drivers will be out there and participating with
- 2:12some question answer sessions too. And then we've got Kalidega Garage Experience, which
- 2:15is a fifty million dollar renovation. We basically built this amusement park around the
- 2:21garages, so fans walk in one side of the garage building, cars coming
- 2:25the other side of the garage building, all open air. The only thing
- 2:29that separates you from the nose of that race car is about five feet and
- 2:31a four foot high fence. It's it's the best way to get as close
- 2:36as possible to the sport. You're basically in the locker room having a conversation
- 2:39with pet Track President Brian Christian of Taladega super Speedway. Of course, you
- 2:43got the guy go five hundred next weekend. Got a Taladega Superspeedway dot com
- 2:47to learn more. Brian talk a little bit about hospitality. I know you
- 2:52guys as you should and do a great job with it, priding yourself on
- 2:55the hospitality aspect. Obviously, the racist center front and center, that's why
- 2:59everybody's there, but the hospitality aspect of it. Now, You've already talked
- 3:01a little bit about the garage experience and other stuff, but so much more
- 3:05stuff to do for the kids aspect to you know, bringing the children up
- 3:08through teaching them about what's going on with racing, hospitality and more. It
- 3:13doesn't get any better in the South, and it doesn't get any better than
- 3:15Talladego exactly right, And that's you know, one of our you know,
- 3:17our main focus is the guest experience here at Talladega Super Sweedway. We want
- 3:22to make sure everybody that comes out just has an amazing time and they leave
- 3:27happy. We've got a great display area that also opens up on Friday,
- 3:30Lots of different activities, lots of swag that's given away there. NASCAR's got
- 3:37a kid zone in there where they can drive little go karts. Also stage
- 3:40there for question answer sessions, lots of information about NASCAR for the novice all
- 3:46the way up to the you know, the experienced NASCAR fan. We'll have
- 3:50our Chevy display will be out there for display will be out there, Toyota
- 3:53Display. Just lots of fun activity is going there and it's all free.
- 3:58That's all free. You don't even have a have to have a ticket to
- 4:00go into our display area on Saturday. Kids twelve and under are free and
- 4:04tickets start at just forty five dollars. One of the other things we do
- 4:09for fans for this guest experience is we allow every single person the ability to
- 4:14bring in a fourteen by fourteen by fourteen inch soft sided cooler. You can
- 4:18have any food, any drink you want in that cooler. No glass please,
- 4:23but any food, any drink in that cooler and come in. It's
- 4:26just just another way we make it affordable for the fan to come out and
- 4:29enjoy NASCAR racing. Don You kind of went exactly where I wanted to go
- 4:32next this Masters week. So a lot of people talk about, you know,
- 4:34hey, if you can get into the Masters, the food and everything
- 4:38is pretty pretty affordable. We know, if you go to college football games,
- 4:42it's getting out priced. NFL, it's extremely expensive. You go down
- 4:45the line here, Major League Baseball, NBA. But when you talk about
- 4:48what you guys do with a cooler experience, you can bring that in.
- 4:51It is a very affordable ticket, one of the more affordable tickets in sports.
- 4:56Yeah it is. And as I mentioned earlier, you know, tickets
- 4:59are are free for kids twelve an under on Saturday, and they started just
- 5:02fifteen dollars on Sunday inside a Taladay garage experience. We actually have value price
- 5:09concessions, so two dollars bottles of water, two dollars coke products, two
- 5:13dollars hot dogs, four dollars chicken finger and fry platters. I don't even
- 5:16think you can get that at you know, a local fast food restaurant around
- 5:19here. And then one of my favorites and don't tell too many people this,
- 5:24but four dollars sixteen ounce beers, so you know, again just making
- 5:29it affordable for the family to come out and enjoy a day at the racetrack
- 5:32from you know, from start to finish. Check them out Talladegosuperspeedway dot com.
- 5:38We'll be sending people over there next week. Brian. We appreciate you
- 5:40guys as always, look forward to a fun weekend next weekend with a gic
- 5:44Goo five hundred. We'll visit again soon. Great, Thank you so much
- 5:46for having me on. Appreciate your support of Talladega Super speed Away in NASCAR.